Richard Whalley

Richard Whalley was appointed as lecturer in composition at the University of Manchester in 2004, and is the founder and director of the university’s new music ensemble, Vaganza. Navigating a pathway between the seemingly contradictory qualities of intimacy and of playfulness or quirkiness, his compositions draw on diverse sources of inspiration, driven by a preoccupation with the sensuous and/or physical impact of music. He is lucky to have worked with some outstanding soloists and ensembles, including Richard Casey, Caroline Balding, Oliver Coates, the Hilliard Ensemble, the Quatuor Danel, Psappha, Dinosaur Annex, Trio Atem and Ensemble 10:10.

He was a finalist in the 1992 BBC Young Musician of the Year Composers’ Award, and has had works selected for the 2001 Gaudeamus Music Week, Ensemble Aleph’s Second Forum for Composers in 2002/3, and ISCM World Music Days in Flanders in October 2012. As a pianist his repertoire extends from Bach and Beethoven to Nancarrow and Ligeti, and he has premiered a number of works including Camden Reeves’s Diablo Canyon, Kevin Malone’s M’Bongo and Peter Swinnen’s Edokaste. Each summer Richard teaches composition alongside Peter Swinnen and performs chamber music at the ARAM-Poitou Summer School in France. He studied at University of York with Roger Marsh and Nicola Lefanu, and at Harvard University with Mario Davidovsky and Joshua Fineberg.